Mildura Massacare

Sunraysia Tree Solutions

I Dont know where to start !


This is in the main street (deakin ave) of Mildura !!!

The work was done by an arborist who also subcontracts his company to the council.

Ekka I need your help to give the councillors curry !!!

I am starting with a letter to the local paper tommorow !1


I just dont know where to start with this council


They have removed a whole block of older sugar gums (Euc cladocalyx) altogeher and this is imo what should happen here.

They do not have a level five arborist in council, the arborist new level 4 arborist they have has no power, the fine for removing a council tree is $200.00 (only) they root prune with an excavator argh !!!!!


Please all of you email the Mayor Mr Glen Milne his personal assistants email address is helenj@mildura.vic.gov.au


The council arborists email isgareth.tyson@mildura.vic.gov.au



this can't go on

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Sunraysia Tree Solutions

Argh how do I get the photos in the text part ? anyone ??

Apocalypsse

Good god, theyve done it to those trees before as well. Its really shocking that councils keep doing this.

At the start of the image link put
[ img ]
and then at the end put
[/ img]
Just remove the spaces

Sunraysia Tree Solutions

They were last lopped in 92, I thought they would have leaned something from then, but no there still in the dark ages.

Eric Frei

This is not pollarding but repeated topping.

It will be interesting to see how many live.

Look at those long over extended self lions tailed leaders!

They are between a rock and a hard place. To leave it alone means possible failure with high target values.

To select and manage some of the leaders ... seems a tough ask judging by the pictures.

Final resort, in the name of safety is retop them, back to "pollard" heads or targets.

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Sunraysia Tree Solutions

Have written to the editor of the local paper, no response yet ? Doubt I will, I will try one of the councillors but don't expect to get far.

I like your suggestion ekka but doubt the council or its contractors have the skill to do this. I believe they should all go, it looks bare anyway and start again.

Eric Frei

Yep, the old argument about the costs of repollarding regularly vs replacement.

The pollard heads are too high to make expedient ground work so will be costly to maintain using EWP's.

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Sunraysia Tree Solutions

Here is some updated pictures of the trees taken approximately 2 weeks ago.

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jmcg.insight.gardens

That is the saddest thing I've seen in a long time.


I suppose the councilors think that it looks nice and neat............................


Julie

Davo The Terrible

Yeah, sad that it was done in the first place. But in my opinion, they still add a lot to the street - I would prefer them kept and this practice continued rather than have them removed and replaced at this stage. That is an incredible arrangement of trunks.

Eric Frei

I'm not sure how the trees would handle an annual or so defoliation for pollarding .... but they should not let these regrow like before.

They can pollard or hedge now.

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MTS247

or prune each years new growth off. let them grow 5cm per year, i think that would work with euc's.

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"Just cause i don't use it, don't make it wrong!"

Bowani Siam

What the?! I can't believe they had let them regrow like that since '92?!?!? Unfortunately now they look STOOPID. However, what can you do? Damage has been done.

P.S. FatKoala; that Koala is way cute!

jmcg.insight.gardens

Any solid info or studies done on pollarding eucs? how often would be recommended I wonder?


I agree they look stoopid. Sad and stoopid.


Julie

MTS247

Just prune them each year, there is no decay issues with pruning 1 year old growth. and they could look like trees.

If they could handle the stress of pollarding and lopping they could handle a little prune each year.

IMO

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"Just cause i don't use it, don't make it wrong!"

Bowani Siam

Eucs are generally pretty responsive to a light prune. Seeing as they are already at this stage of bushiness they could get away with hedging the tops. Hahaha that would be one hell of a pleaching.. Hahaha hilarious.

Sunraysia Tree Solutions

Some updated pictures of the trees now, just the way the council wants them to look, like big pieces of broccoli !

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Eric Frei

That is fantastic, thanks for the pics and update.

It's been 2 years, seems all trees lived.

The hazard was abated.

The regrowth is not yet a problem but will need management soon.

That is the next thing to watch, will they hedge them, will they pollard them again, will they do nothing and repeat history?

Keep watching I suppose.

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George Valentine

I reckon they look fantastic, as I do agree with this type of work in these circumstances, great way to utilize well established trees, eliminating all the hazards these trees impose when reaching large size.

I'm to believe, they will never allow the same mistake to happen again, a little routinely maintenance from than on, should keep those tree from being a hazard as before...!

Hey fatkoala, broccoli tree heads/tops are quite nice...!

Cheers
George

Sunraysia Tree Solutions

While I believe they look good now, I'm in agreement with eric, its what the council does next that will be interesting ? In the past they have been totally reactionary.

I just wrote to the editor of the local paper and pointed out three sugar gums of near identical age and condition to these outside a kindergarten have not been touched !!

(got some time now that I cut my right hand with a chainsaw, doing palms !!, that's the problem working by yourself you develop bad habits and there's no one to pick you up on them, time I did a refresher I reckon)

Eric Frei

Lets see the same size trees untouched, because these were touched up bad in the past hence the topping.

The thing is these are not the ideal tree for pollarding. From my website.

Qualified tree pruning Brisbane

So an annual or bi-annual etc topping to an evergreen species may cause problems, how bad time will tell. But leaving it alone for 10 years will cause the old issue to return.

Hedging is the better option but costly. Hedging leaves foliage on and contains the canopy. wouldn't be a very natural or suitable look either I feel, Disneyland trees.

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Jeff Darby

They certainly look beter than the way they were topped and lopped and left looking like hat racks now they just look like mutants. The will to survive is amazing with trees that have their very life support system cut off and they survive. This is a return to old world city pruning I see hundreds of brusbox's that have survived this ordeal and regained a reasonable sort of form however brushies have proven to me they are the slugger of the treeworld.

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Member: Australian Tree Association

Join the Australian Tree Association...Have your voice heard !

Arboriculture, A life long study for some, a passing phase for others

© Jeffrey J Darby 2011

KevinE

Jeez mate, not good! Hope you're on the mend?

100% correct, working alone, we all definitely start to short cut. Or, as a trainer once said; we get better at doing things poorly!

George Valentine

Ouch, a chainsaw cut is never pretty...!
How much damage did you do to your hand...???

Recover fast and well...!

Cheers
George

George Valentine

Eric,

You titled your article "Pollarding - a rare and precision pruning method" and I couldn't agree more...!

Looking at the first lot of pics in the original post, I was amazed of the skill of the person that make the original cuts, that allow the new growth the develop perfectly, the pic where they show the long shoots being prepared for removal/cut, demonstrates what I'm talking about.

The group of guys that cut it again did do a great job and maybe they were the same guys that done it in the first time one thing is for sure, is an art to make such cuts and there are not many people I know that are capable of such, I myself add a few successes and failures, the last try, 2 young (about 10 years) gum trees of total different species that were planted by the house owner, when they he/she developed the gardens.

These 2 trees are in the front garden and since I moved in (near 7 years ago), I've seen them grow thin and tall, with a power line about 5 meters away from the trees centre/trunk. Last year I decided to do a lot more than "pollarding" as they were horribly thin with the canopy/top as high as palms and nothing else in between "goose neck".

One can ask sometimes, "how do you kill gums...???" some are as resilient as bad smells while others die for no apparent reason, but this stubborn one of mine has the capability to grow dozens of shoots from the ground up, everywhere in the trunk but, nothing happens from the cut I made down to about 2" or so. Just a couple of days I nearly filled a wheel-barrow with shoots, particularly from around the base since I attempted the graft but the graft, or the new shoot attached to the graft "heart" has dried and died.

So, what I'm trying to say is that, yes pollarding is an art, as is many of other procedures performed to a tree but, in my view and experience, there are always good chances for failure, even if everything was done right. Trees being the live organisms they are, have or may have totally unexpected reactions to disturbance. I have seen healthy trees die from work or procedures that shaved many very unhealthy trees of the same species...!

You mention about the most suitable tree species for "extreme" tree body reduction and I can agree that some just don't well even with light trimmings so, I decided to cut the trunks at about shoulder high or so, using identical methods I use when working with olive trees or most fruit trees.

I wanted the "broccolli" head/shape/effect on those tree, before they would become another problem I had to deal with. While one has done what it should, the other doesn't want to and on this one I even attempted a graft from one of the side shoots and again it failed. Every time I work on it, I lose a foot or so of it and I reckon, that I will endup pulling it out all together as it was planted in the wrong place (nearly under the fence), anyway...!

Many of the Towns around here have had their street trees pollarded and the success rate is about 99.5% in all the trees and varieties I've seen but, the ones I've seen to recover the fastest, are the Ashes...!

In my view, the pure magnificence of a mature large tree, with all its natural "bits" is a majestic site, difficult to be reproduced by men but, this is only possible if the tree exists in its right environment and location, regardless if grown by itself or has been planted. Trees that grow to large sizes, need to have a better planting location criteria, one can not expect to have both sides of everything, as they wish.

In my view, the 99.9% of the tree problems in existence are a result of poor or lack of planting suitability issues knowledge. When colonization and urbanization started, trees were planted in the streets depending of the country of origin of those that started it all, some made the right choice, others did not and now, many, many years later, we have trees that were suitable then (available space) but are not, any more.

Some have grown too big and too hold, which require replacement but some part of the community, just don't want to accept simple facts of nature and life. Why to replant with a tree species that didn't work in the first place...??? why is that, in Australia we have this "need to be native" mentality, even when we know, they are not suitable...???

There is no better example them the "Gums/Eucalyptus", where everyone knows they are excellent to the wildlife and natural habitat but NOT a good choice for urban situations, particularly a great number of these Gum species, however, landscape engineers, government authorities and general public keep protecting some of these "death traps", and worse, keep planting them in new house developments/new suburbs, by the thousands...!

The public sector is as much responsible as the authorities, they are still selecting gum trees to put in their yards, too damn close the the houses, sheds, fences, roads, etc, etc, etc...! Sure, being cheap to buy and growing fast, can not be sufficient reason, particularly if they have been educated to what those trees will become down the track. I feel no sympathy for those that, get smacked in the head or worse in their own yards from falling branches from these gums, if they were the ones to plant them in the first place...!

If they want to plant gums or enjoy safely the "majestic" aspect of an large gum, do so in a large block of land/property, where you can see them from the distance but doesn't have to live under them...!
On the other hand, if councils and the private sector wants to continue to plant Gums and live under them, the one way or the other, they have to accept a compromise, and that is, to never allow these trees to be planted too close to amenities and accept the simple fact that, those branches can not be allowed to grow freely and untouched, they will have to accept and implement formative pruning or pollarding at the critical growth stages of those trees.

The tree people/workers, would have as much if not more work as they have now, just slightly different techniques and approaches to tree management. Is just ridiculous the extent some people are prepared to go, particularly government people, to try to stop nature's cycle...! The millions of tax payer dollars wasted to entertain these nut heads mentalities and egos, is just beyond anyone's sensible comprehension.



Cheers
George